Ponce de Leon was the first spanish explorer to come to the North American mainland, and he thought he'd found the fountain of youth near what is now St. Augustine, Florida. What he actually found was the future site of the cheesiest tourist trap this side of Wally World in National Lampoon Vacation. It's hard to put into words how overdone the site of Don Ponce's spring is, but it has a planetarium, they hand you the brackish tasting water in little plastic cups, and there are life-sized spanish soldiers strewn about the park.
After drinking our fountain of youth water, we proceeded to the Castillo of St. Augustine, the 350 year old Spanish Fort overlooking the harbor. It's a fantastic site run by the National Park Service, and gives a great look at the history of Florida. An exhibit there also explains in brief why Florida mattered in the first place:
If you're a Conquistador and you have a bunch of gold and spices that you want to take from Latin America back to Spain in the 16th or 17th century, you obviously have to take it on a sailing ship. And the way to get that ship across the Atlantic is to ride the gulfstream current, which begins between the Bahamas and Florida and shoots straight back across to Western Europe. So that means there will be a consistent flow of treasure laden Spanish ships sailing right by Florida. If you're a pirate or a foreign navy, it's not hard to decide where to attack. Whoever held Florida could defend access to the gulfstream, and the flow of Carribean commerce back to Europe. Hence, fortifications at St. Augustine, which the Spanish and the British fought over for more than a century
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